Your kitchen is a critical part of your home that is central to perhaps THE key activity that your family performs daily: preparing food. And if someone in your family is especially fond of cooking most meals (instead of ordering out, warming up frozen dinners, or toasting up some poptarts), having a functional, efficient kitchen space is essential! No one enjoys feeling like they’re trapped in a claustrophobic space with no room to work with when preparing a meal to feed the family. Having a poorly planned, tiny kitchen can make cooking more frustrating. Therefore, you must carefully plan out a smaller kitchen, for every inch you have counts!
The placement and design of each component in your kitchen is extremely important to make sure your small kitchen space is being used as efficiently as possible. Here are some ideas to help you use your kitchen space to its full potential!
LAYOUT
Your kitchen’s layout is its most fundamental aspect of efficiency. How you decide to arrange your cabinets, large appliances, and countertops within the space you have will greatly affect how functional the space inside will be once drawers, cabinets, countertops, and appliances are added. There are a few different styles of layout that can work well in a small kitchen: Single wall, L-shaped, galley, and island.
Single wall layouts are the simplest, involving just one wall with the installation of the countertop, cabinets, appliances, and storage. They’re great if the kitchen space doesn’t have a dedicated room and is instead confined to a small portion of a space. They are best if you want as open a floor plan as possible, but they don’t provide a lot of counter space to work with as a trade off.
L-shaped kitchens can work well if your kitchen is in the corner of the house. Unlike the single wall kitchen layout, you would have two walls instead where you could install your countertops, appliances, and cabinets. This allows for a greater area of workspace within the triangle that is formed inside the L-shaped kitchen. You could even plan a U-shape instead of an L by installing a protruding section of counter space from one of the ends of the L to give you even more counterspace to work with.
A galley kitchen works well if the space you have for the kitchen is very narrow. A galley kitchen would occupy two facing walls. They offer great efficiency through their greater counter and storage space potential. However, keep in mind that you will have quite limited floor space in a galley style kitchen, especially in already very narrow spaces.
Island kitchens are essentially a single wall kitchen with a kitchen island installed nearby to add more counterspace without enclosing the area. This can be great if you prefer a more open floorplan that allows freer movement throughout the house while still having extra counterspace in addition to what is available on the wall. An island also allow for more storage built inside of it.
STORAGE
Making the most out of your storage spaces will help prevent kitchen tools ending up on your valuable and limited counterspace. Drawers are a much more effective way to store the many things that are needed in the kitchen. When possible, opt for as many drawers as you can when planning out the storage spaces. They allow for much easier access to the items placed within in comparison to cabinets while also looking much more organized and sleek. Take careful consideration of how the opening of drawers/doors can prevent access to different appliances or other drawers/cabinets and plan around them accordingly. This is especially important when planning an L or U-shaped kitchen as the corners can be tricky!
Be mindful of the handles you choose to go with when selecting cabinets and drawers as larger ones can take up more space than you have the budget for in a smaller kitchen. Handles with protruding pieces can also catch on shirts and pants, which can make navigating a small kitchen irritating. Cabinets with inset handles or slimmer pulls are a much better alternative than traditional hardware.
Also consider making the most out of vertical spaces within your kitchen that would typically go unused by adding more shelving and built in storage units along the walls. These shelves and storage units can add a surprising amount of extra space for you to store your kitchen tools and dinnerware. You can also choose to have your cabinets designed so they extend all the way to the ceiling to utilize as much space as possible.
MULTIPURPOSE SURFACES
If you want your kitchen to be as large as possible but have a dining area that encroaches upon its space, it might be worth thinking about combining the two spaces into one! You can choose to use one of your kitchen countertops as a multipurpose space that functions as a breakfast bar. This way you have a space that you can use both for cooking and seated eating without the added bulk of a dining table. A breakfast bar can also have drawers and cabinets built into it which adds to your storage space, unlike a dining table. Planning for under bar shelving can give you even more space to store things in your kitchen.
You can also install a sink that works with over the sink chopping boards. This allows you to not only use your sink to wash, but to also double as a portion of your cooking station. There are also over the sink dish drying racks you can purchase if you don’t plan on installing a dishwasher that can make use of the space above your sink.
APPLIANCES
There are some appliances that are necessary, while others are not. Prioritize which appliances are most important to you and cut out the ones that won’t see much use to maximize the space you have in your kitchen. You’ll obviously need a refrigerator, sink, and stove, but do you really need a blender, pressure cooker, toaster oven, AND air fryer all sitting on your precious counter space? Choosing smaller essential appliances can also give you more workable space if you can make them work for you. Examples include half sized dishwashers, slim fridges, and smaller sinks that can accommodate chopping boards.
CONCLUSION
Working with a small kitchen space can seem daunting at first, but as you can see there are many ways to make the most out of what you have. With a little creativity and good planning, any small kitchen can be turned into an efficient and functional space that supports the activities of a family!
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We hope that by reading this article you learned something that you didn’t know before! Designing your home can be a stressful process, as you want to get everything looking as perfect as possible, and your bathroom is by no means an exception. Hopefully as you embark on this journey you will be able to make decisive decisions based on these different factors as you narrow down the look of your dream home.
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